CircleID

Several people have pointed out that the current WHOIS doesn’t satisfy European privacy laws, to which a reasonable response is so what?

In other words, it's not a problem for Americans, and "sucks to be you" if you aren't one. Three cheers for imperialism, USA-style.

I'm confused, John.

If you see domain registration as analogous to automobile registration, I have to wonder whether auto registration is available to the general public in your state.

Automobile registration, in most states, is readily available to law enforcement, but is not readily available to the general public.  So, what is it that you would find appropriate?

Or is it that you find the automobile registration system to be flawed in that regard?

The OPOC proposal is very much like corporate registration in most jurisdictions.  One can do a lot of damage with a corporation, too, but the only available information in, say, Delaware, is the identity of a corporate agent to whom legal papers may be sent.  Sending process to the registered agent satisfied the requirement of service of process, and the world has functioned quite comfortably with that mechanism for many decades.

Yes, except when the domain registrant is fake, and the opoc is fake as well. Call it an extra layer of obfuscation to fight through.

Even there - only natural persons get extended that kind of protection, with business entities bound to publish full information.

I agree with the broad strokes of your argument John.  As an ICANN-newbie (my first meeting was Wellington) and end-customer of the domain system, I've been bewildered by the conversation about WHOIS privacy and found this article to be helpful and illuminating.

The privacy case doesn't speak terribly strongly to me, since my contact information has been in WHOIS since 1993, has been scraped a boatload of times, and those lists already provide my spam filter plenty of opportunities to learn about new things.  Nobody has dropped by my house in St Paul, MN and asked to meet foo@bar.com, so I'm fairly complacent about the physical security risk.  Admittedly, I get the occasional angry email from a spam recipient berating The Foo for something or other, but those are few and far between these days.  Current registrants and I have registrar-provided privacy options available if we so choose.  So that leaves me scratching my head and asking "aren't we trying to either un-ring a bell, or solve a problem for which a solution already exists?"

I've always thought of myself as being entrusted with (and accountable for) a gaggle of domains that are part of an open/public system.  If I screw up with those domains, it seems fair that people can very quickly get in touch to get things fixed.

Admittedly, I'm merely a customer.  And an ICANN newbie at that.  So I'm game for compelling arguments, but the status quo on WHOIS privacy is ok with me.